Urban Sims

Chapter 326 Dark Forest
The derivation of the law of the dark forest is based on the two basic axioms of "Cosmic Sociology".

1. Survival is the first need of civilization.

2. Civilizations are growing and expanding, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains basically the same.

The above two points are correct to a certain extent, but it is too ridiculous to deduce the "Law of the Dark Forest" based on these two points alone.

"In the current universe, there are 3000 billion known galaxies, and the number of stars contained in each galaxy ranges from hundreds of millions to tens of trillions. With such a large number of stars, it is impossible for resources to be insufficient. , the number of galaxies that have been effectively developed may be less than one in a hundred thousand."

"The universe is big, life is bigger!"

Dr. Heng said: "Put a mononuclear cell into a sea. If this cell divides every half hour, then after three days, the whole sea will be full of this kind of cell! Exponential growth is a demon. In this In front of a demon, no amount of resources can meet the needs of this demon!"

"This algorithm is correct, but the actual situation is: even if this cell is given three months, it and its offspring cannot fill the entire ocean. The existence of other variables will have a huge impact on this theoretical model. , and no matter what species it is, the increase in the population, on the premise that the living space cannot increase exponentially at the same time, will go from an exponential curve to a smooth one at last... There is no civilization that can grow and expand indefinitely."

"But it always needs to expand, right? This civilization needs to expand, so does that civilization. The total amount of resources remains the same, and they all need to expand. Wouldn't there be conflicts?"

"The possibility of conflict exists, but there is a premise. Only when the two civilizations have expanded to the maximum boundary and can no longer expand, can a war break out. However, there are very few intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Every intelligent civilization The distance between civilizations is very wide, and there are a large number of material buffer zones and unowned land. Before these unowned resources are fully developed, it is unlikely that two civilizations will fight for unowned resources. According to First-come, first-served principle, they will increase their pioneering efforts."

"In history, there has never been such a war - a country that has not conquered the nearby wilderness has traveled thousands of miles to occupy another country."

Yun Xinghe said again: "Moreover, war has the logic of war. Two civilizations that have never met before, just because they are close or have discovered each other's existence, they will destroy each other, or die together. This kind of thing, history It has almost never happened in the world, war does not necessarily mean destruction, war may also mean conquest, fusion, and unification... Even if all the intelligent life forms of the other civilization are turned into slaves, it is impossible to massacre them all.”

"Of course, it cannot be completely denied that in the history of some civilizations, there have been many massacres. This is caused by the gap between strength and weakness, or it may be caused by the large difference in weapon generations. The gap in military strength is too great. The weak side will perish completely."

"But if the two sides have the same technical level and have a shotgun with similar attack power, massacre is a stupid act, it will only arouse stronger resistance, and it will only bring more heavy losses to themselves."

"You have admitted that there is a massacre. Isn't this the embodiment of the law of the dark forest? What's wrong with this?"

Dr. Heng said, this rule, Yun Xinghe himself has proved its correct side, how could it be wrong?
Yun Xinghe shook his head:
"The mistake is that this law is too narrow. It roughly compares the competition among civilizations to a zero-sum game of life and death. In fact, the solution to conflicts is not just war. The role of diplomacy must not be ignored! If a civilization does not have a sound diplomatic system, it will not be difficult for this civilization to get out of its cradle. Even if it enters the interstellar era, this extreme civilization will either perish in war or die in the In the war, become the ultimate victor, and all civilizations will be conquered and wiped out.”

"The law of the dark forest is actually to completely obliterate the diplomatic attributes of civilization, choose to distrust, not accept, and not contact everything around, and arbitrarily regard different civilizations in the universe as a killing game." Different players, apart from killing each other, there is no other..."

"In fact, if all civilizations follow the so-called dark forest law, the prospects of this universe and this galaxy will be unimaginable."

but……

After explaining so much, Dr. Heng still shook his head:

"Don't trust any civilization, and don't interact with other civilizations! The law of the dark forest tells us: every civilization has bad intentions, and we must be vigilant."

"Could it be that you came here with good intentions?"

Dr. Heng asked.

Yun Xinghe choked.

This……

How can you continue to communicate when you are so stubborn?

This Dr. Heng has been completely brainwashed by the so-called "law of the dark forest".

"Grandpa, do you still know what viewpoint that wise captain used to defeat the 'Law of the Dark Forest'? Tell me quickly, how to defeat him?"

"The captain seems to have proposed three positive laws, namely, the law of war, the law of competition, and what other laws are there, yes, the law of morality! These three laws are sharp swords that stab the law of the dark forest... this I am not very clear about the specific content of the three laws, but you can propose a paradox, a paradox that makes him unable to answer and immediately shakes him."

"What paradox?" Yun Xinghe asked hastily.

"Since there is only destruction among civilizations, so far, why didn't the three-eyed people destroy Erqi Planet, and why didn't the Blue Star Federation destroy the three-eyed people immediately?"

"Yup!"

Yun Xinghe's eyes lit up, and he immediately repeated the question to Dr. Heng: "Since you know the existence of the law of the dark forest, why didn't you kill all the Erqi stars? And when we came to your homeland, why didn't we destroy you immediately?" ?”

"Because the Erqi people have become our slaves, slaves are not a threat."

Dr. Heng thought for a while, then looked at Yun Xinghe, and said, "As for you not destroying us, it's because...you want to enslave us too!"

"Okay! If we are enslaving you, and you three-eyed people become slaves, do you still think that we will destroy you?" Yun Xinghe asked again.

"It shouldn't be...we still have value."

"That's good! In the same way, if higher civilizations also have the technology and strength to enslave other civilizations, and those lower civilizations have certain use value, they can become slaves without threat. You say, these higher civilizations will still Traveling thousands of miles, did you come here specifically to destroy the slaves in their eyes?"

"This……"

Click.

In Dr. Heng's heart, something extremely solid broke, and tiny cracks appeared.

Then, the crack expanded and spread, and with a crash, this solid thing became fragments all over the place.

"Yeah, since advanced civilizations have highly developed technology, how can they travel thousands of miles to eliminate those slaves who are not a threat? Weak people are always afraid of the strong, but the strong in their minds are What kind of thought, how would the weak know?"

After all, an elephant would value a cheetah, but how could it possibly care about ants beneath its feet?
The biggest flaw in the law of the dark forest is that it compares all civilizations to "hunters" with guns, and puts all civilizations on the same level. This is actually very inappropriate. In fact, it should be compared to lions, tigers, Eagles, wolves, rabbits, sheep, snakes, mice, ants—this is actually more appropriate.

As for the stars, planets and other resources in the universe, they are like grasslands and forests in nature, which are the stage for these animals to grow, reproduce, compete and play games.

The law of the jungle will always exist, but there will not be a lion killing all the animals in the forest; there will not be an elephant traveling thousands of miles to trample on an ant's nest.

Therefore, the reason why a civilization's progress is restricted is never technical backwardness, but narrow-mindedness.

"It's not scary for ants to know that they are weak. What's scary is that an ant's vision is always as wide as its own eyes... Any civilization, no matter how weak it is, if it doesn't have the vision and heart of an elephant, He will never grow up to the level of an elephant!"

In Yun Xinghe's mind, a passage from the teacher of "Cosmic Diplomacy" suddenly came to mind.

　Personally, I think the "law of the dark forest" is indeed a bit narrow. In fact, we can know from the fact that there are more than 200 countries on the earth. Resources, weakness, and poverty will not lead to the demise of small countries. Completely destroying opponents is not a normal civilized competition.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)